


Home Is Such A Lonely Place

by JustJasper



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sending Crystals, communication issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8720506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: The sending crystals are a lifeline when things go badly for Dorian in Tevinter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A mixture of the communication issues/psychological hurt/comfort that was requested - I really hope this works for you!

The purple crystal glows in the Bull's hand, a faintly pulsating light dancing off the chain it's strung to. Through it, Dorian's voice, pouring over his day.

He could hear it with the chain around his neck, crystal at his breast, or resting on the table as he works over his armour. But it's wrong somehow, not to hold it when it's been days since they've managed to talk.

“I've half a mind to put on my most ridiculous heeled boots and stamp on his toes the next time we're in session together,” Dorian is saying, sounding tired, but happier than he did at the start of his rant about his peers.

“Kind of obvious.”

“I want to it be deliberate enough that he knows it was on purpose, but not enough for him to prove it.”

“No witnesses, then.”

“At least not any that like him.”

Dorian makes a little hum when the Bull laughs – affectionate, soft. He can imagine the way his face looks, after all this time.

“To top off everything, I saw my mother today.”

It's a casual slip into the conversation about Dorian's day, like it always is when Dorian talks about his mother. Like it doesn't actually cut Dorian to the bone that his mother always loved him from afar, if she loved him at all.

“Yeah?”

“I finally managed to spend some time at the family estate, with the session at the Magisterium winding down.”

“How is she?”

Dorian wants him to ask. He wouldn't have mentioned it if the meeting hadn't got to him.

“She's not been well lately.”

Ah.

“She was drunk, of course,” Dorian continues. “I can't remember the last time I saw her and she wasn't. But besides that, she's been a little under the weather.”

“You're worried about her.”

“I don't see why. She'll drink her way through it, as she has done since I've ever known her. She has a qunari constitution, you know.”

The Bull laughs. “That right?”

“I can't remember her ever being sick. And how she can hold her drink – oh, she puts me to shame, amatus. At least in that, she reminds me of you.”

“I'm thinking I should be offended, since the last time you mentioned her it was to call her a 'miserable old crone'.”

The Bull can tell that Dorian is waving his hand dismissively on the other end of the crystal.

“You wouldn't understand. You don't have parents, that's just how you talk about them when they're getting on your nerves. She's not even sixty yet – though definitely a miserable crone sometimes.”

“Tama'd have my hide for talking about her like that.”

“So would my mother, if she knew. Anyway, Mae is hosting a function tomorrow, and it's going to be a chore for us both. Tell me something to distract me.”

The Bull could go back to his mother, but it's a deliberate change of subject. If Dorian needs distraction, the Bull's always been good that that.

“You missed out never seeing Skinner end a bar brawl on her own.”

“Did I? Do tell!”

*

“Where are you?”

“Orlais.”

“No,” Dorian says through the crystal, “where are you right now?”

“On the road.”

“It's nearly morning, Bull! I was sure I'd have woken you.”

“Nah, we got an early start.”

Krem gives him a look, and jogs ahead towards the company wagon. Dalish passes on his blind side, and gives a cheery “hello mum!” in the direction of the crystal.

“Was that Dalish?”

“Yeah. Are you alright, kadan?”

“Yes, I just couldn't sleep.”

He doesn't sound tired, though. He sounds annoyed.

“You been up all night writing angry letters again?”

“An angry letter to my mother would hardly stop her.”

He knows Dorian doesn't talk to Maevaris about his mother. It's too close, somehow, too much like gossip, even for someone he trusts as much as Mae.

“You at the estate?”

“A flying visit. How I'm not more insufferable, coming from parents so stubborn and unbending—”

The Bull could argue, but it might have a bit more of a barb then he intends. It's Dorian's stubbornness, after all, that has the Bull here instead of there with him.

“She still refuses to transition the Pavus slaves out of servitude. My parent's moderate politics still requires a full roster of slaves, it seems.”

Mae's got no slaves left, from what Dorian's told him – a slow transition from slaves to employees over a couple of decades, enough that it's not been a slap in the face to the Magisterium. Still too fast for some. Not nearly fast enough for the slaves.

“You're a Magister – can't you do that?”

“My father bequeathed them to her, legally. He left me everything else, and she – well, I think she resents it. And she doesn't see anything wrong with it – at least, not how the Pavus house does it. No brands, no collars, we're so civilised, you see.”

“So you got into another fight with her about it.”

“She told me she sold one of the gardeners, wasn't I happy? That's one less slave around!”

The Bull slows his pace, letting his boys get ahead of him. He loves Dorian, and he supports what he has to do, but his politics is bad conversation.

“So I've spent the better part of three days brown-nosing the Macrinus estate to buy her back.”

“Did you get her?”

“I paid three times as much as I should have to buy her back from them.” There's a pause, and then: “That sounded rather terrible aloud. I only mean that my resources aren't endless, and if my mother hadn't done this in the first place, I wouldn't have had to spend time and money fixing this.”

“It's okay.”

It's not. None of Tevinter's shit is okay, and Dorian being able to talk about buying slaves without his skin crawling isn't okay, but when he's trying to fix the whole rotten core of Tevinter, how else is he going to survive? He can't fall to pieces every time he has to do something he can't stomach.

“She's freed. One of the Lucerni has lumber homesteads.”

“You can't believe your mother didn't know exactly what she was doing with this.”

“Of course I don't believe she did this in innocence. Spite is the only recourse she has these days.”

“Does she know you dealt with it?”

“Oh no. I'm going to gripe about it every time I see her, so she thinks it's enough to keep me rattled. Then perhaps she won't think to do it again just to get to me.”

It's petty bullshit – Dorian's inherited a bit of it, but it's sniping comments and one-upmanship, not selling people as if they're cattle.

“You're doing good.”

“You wouldn't say that if you'd been in session today. I'd take Orlesians over the Magisterium, some days.”

“Shit, kadan. You need a break.”

Dorian laughs, edged with sadness through the crystal. “Maybe I do.”

*

The crystal glows very faintly when Dorian is calling from the other side, but it's not what wakes the Bull. The little light isn't enough to wake him in the dark, and it's silent and still.

But the thing gets heavy in his mind when Dorian's calling – it'll come to mind, clear as day, like a weight inside his skull. Creepy magic shit.

It's become the most comforting feeling in the world.

“Dorian?”

“Did I wake you?”

He knows something's wrong, just from the worn-weary quietness of Dorian's voice. Knew he was headed back to visit his mother a few days ago, knew it was bad enough that he didn't wait for dawn for a carriage.

“Yeah,” the Bull says, as he settles the crystal on his chest again. “You know I don't mind.”

“I've not slept. My mother, she's very sick.”

“You got a healer?”

“Several have apparently been in and out of the estate over the last few weeks. They've all said it's the liver. She's had all the herbs and potions, and now she's jaudiced and thin. There's nothing more they can do.”

“Anything you can do for her?”

“If I had the slightest inkling of how to go about it, or any will to do so, I could open a vein for her. More than one Magister has come back from near-death thanks to blood magic.”

He knows that Dorian never would. Doesn't stop him shuddering at the thought.

“She wouldn't want it. When I saw my father all those years ago in Redcliffe, it was apparent she detested him for what he'd wanted to do. The method, if not the hoped outcome. And now...”

Dorian laughs; it's an ugly sound.

“She's trying to hurt me. I know she's in pain, but if she keeping screaming that I'm the reason my father's dead, or that she regrets having birthed me I'm going to—”

Dorian's voice catches, and the Bull can hear him swallow, then exhale a shaking breath. He must have the crystal held up to his face – maybe curled up on his bed. The Bull feels useless, across countries, not even able to drag Dorian into his arms and hold him.

“Today she wept and told me how awful it was that I was alone. No wife, no children, not even a male lover to show the for 'choice' I'd made. And I didn't tell her about you, even then – because we both know she's heard the rumours about my time in the South, and she was only fishing for more to hurt me with. For me to tell her about the man I love, and for her to tell me that it's meaningless without a legacy.”

 _You're making a legacy_ , he thinks, because if Dorian can make change in Tevinter it's gonna be remembered – but no – that's not what Dorian cares about, and not what he needs to hear.

“That's crap, and you know it.”

It startles a little laugh out of him.

“You know she's just trying to get to you. If it makes dying easier, let her think it is. But you know who you are.”

Dorian exhales again, steadier. The Bull aches to cup his jaw in his hand and press their foreheads together.

“Soon both my parents will have gone to their graves disappointed in their only child, who was never the man they wanted him to be. Oh well.”

It sounds nothing as flippant as the Bull knows he's aiming for – tired, worn-through, watching his mother's last days.

“I'm proud of the man you are.”

“Are you?”

“Shit yeah, Dorian. You're strong, and brave, and I think about how proud I am of you every day.”

“Well. Right.”

It's not like Dorian can't take a compliment – he's dazzling under praise, but it's always cute when he's caught off guard. He can imagine the flush of his cheeks, the twitch of his moustache as he smiles. Shit, he misses him.

“You got a chess board there?” he asks, to give Dorian something else to focus on.

“I'm sure there is, somewhere.”

“Play me. Pretty sure it's five-four to me.”

“No, the last game was a stalemate, you can't call that a victory.”

“You were cheating.”

“I'd like to see you prove it, when I'm the only one playing with an actual board.”

The Bull laughs. Soon he can hear the clack of wooden chess pieces as Dorian sets up his board on the other end, and he does his best to give Dorian a damn good game.

*

“She's dead.”

It's early, and rain patters on the Bull's tent, as the purple light of the sending crystal glows in the dimness.

“The healers made her comfortable – so they said. She stopped crying, and then eventually stopped wheezing. I held her hand until she was gone. I think she wanted me there, at the end.”

“I'm sorry, kadan.”

How long since Dorian last slept? He sounds like he might pass out right on the other end of the sending crystal. It's happened before – there's something comforting about hearing Dorian's soft snoring as he lies alone.

“I'll be expected to take a leave of absence from the Magisterium for mourning. It'd be unthinkable if I didn't make the token effort to show respect to my mother. Not too long, of course. Can't be too upset my lone surviving parent is dead, it might show how weak the Pavus stock truly is.”

The Bull huffs a sound that's barely a laugh. “Of course.”

“Until the funeral, and then a week, maybe. What if I were to meet you in that inn on the Nevarran border and fuck you until I've forgotten this whole ordeal?”

“If that's what you need, I'll be there.”

Dorian laughs.

“Maker knows I need you. None of the pillows here quite compare to your bulk. But I have a funeral to plan, and affairs to arrange. There's no such thing as a small, private ceremony when there's a death amongst the Alti.”

“You need a break from this crap, Dorian.”

“It doesn't work like that. I have to be here, there's so much important work for me to do.”

“I know that, but the work's not going to go away if you take a week. It's not as if the other Magisters don't sneak off to see their mistresses.”

“You're my mistress now? I'm rather infamous for my youth, I hardly think anyone would believe it.”

“Then they probably already think you've got a lover stashed away somewhere. Who was the most famous guy the Inquisition ever dealt with by Tevinter standards? They probably think you're screwing Gaspard, or renowned author Varric Tethras.”

Dorian cackles at that – the Bull can even hear it echoing off the walls of whatever grand room he's in.

“Perhaps settling some of my mother's affairs might take me near to Nevarra after all. She does hail from there some generations back, after all.”

“What a coincidence, the Chargers have an upcoming job near the border. Weird, huh?”

*

He's a day from the little inn where they've met a few times, months between, on the Nevarran side of the border. Nice place, loads of orchards everywhere, little villas dotting the hillside. The crystal hangs from his neck as his draft horse moves along steadily.

“How was the funeral?”

“Dull, by Tevinter standards. Not even one attempted poisoning.”

“Dull's good. Nobody wants a Tevinter funeral to be 'exciting'.”

“True enough. And I only cried in front of Mae, so well done me!”

Dorian's not a crier, and he didn't expect waterworks, since he's considered himself estranged even after going back to Tevinter, but it still makes his chest ache to know that he's been hurting. So he doesn't want to cry over the crystal, but he still wants the Bull to know he's been upset – the Bull appreciates that too. It's not quite talking about their feelings, but he's not about to push when Dorian's just cremated his mother.

“You said she's going in the family crypt?”

“Her ashes will. Next to my father.”

“You picked out a nice spot for your urn?”

“Don't be ridiculous, I promised my corpse to the study of necromancy when I was newly of age just to horrify my parents.”

“Creepy,” he mutters.

“Failing that, as long as you don't scatter me in the blasted ocean, I'll leave it to you.”

“Hey,” the Bull says, while his heart jumps painfully, “who says you're going first?”

“I've no solid plans for the order of things.”

“Only that we're together, huh?”

“You're the man I love, amatus,” he grouses, and the Bull can imagine the way he bristles with mock affront, “of course together.”

It has the weight of a vow to it.

“It's not dying time yet, 'Vint. Less ash talk, more ass talk.”

“Right, I'm turning my horse around.”

“Hey, you like it.”

“And Maker help me.”


End file.
